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Monthly Archives: April 2016

I believe I mentioned before that I write in my sun room in Greenville, South Carolina. Its five windows are uncovered, giving me a 180-degree view of my neighbor’s back yard, which is beautiful, and ours, which is hurting. Twenty-nine years after moving in, some 20 planting experiments gone badly awry, it looks more like a ball field than a yard.

I spent much of March buying back yard makeover magazines, dreaming of putting up a black iron fence to replace the chain link one broken by falling trees. Dreaming of a screened porch and patio to replace the aging sun deck. Dreaming of flower beds and pergolas and arbors to replace the weedy grass and weedier beds. .

And then, overnight, the trees sprouted their early spring finery. In both the yard and the woods behind us, green hid the power lines way off in the distance. It hid the fallen limbs littering the forest floor. It replaced the ugly barrenness with a shimmery lime cover. Turns out the yard is not so bad after all.

Now that I can abandon those makeover plans for awhile, maybe I can actually write in the sun room.